The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that it monitored the personal e-mails of employees who had concerns about unsafe medical devices beginning in April 2010 but said it did so to investigate allegations that the employees had leaked confidential information to the public.

The FDA’s statement came in response to a Washington Post article last month that reported that the FDA intercepted and stored the Gmail communications of a group of agency doctors who raised concerns with Congress about the agency approving cancer-screening and other devices despite the doctors’ determinations that the devices were not safe or effective.